Svenska Unescorådet Swedish National Commission for UNESCO

Stockholm May 16h 2008

Written Statement of the Swedish National Commission of UNESCO The current 34C/5 is a significant step forward, Sweden highly approves of the new model of presenting the proposal for budget and programme. Dividing the document in two parts with a “political” part for the decision making and one detailed technical part gives the Member States an overview of the proposals. Most important is to clarify the part of the C/5 in the overall structure of steering documents of UNESCO. Much focus has been on C/4 and C/5. We are convinced that the Director-Generals report C/3 is of outmost importance in the governing of UNESCO. There should be a clear link between the C/4, the C/5, the C/3 and also the C/2, including lessons learnt from internal and external evaluations as well as the recommendations by the External Auditor. The four documents should be structured along the strategic objectives and their MLAs as to promote a good overview. In that way the four texts can be placed next to each other and the reader can easily compare and evaluate them. In order to achieve this the link should be transparent and easy to monitor: 1. The strategic objectives should be defined in the C/4, 2. transformed into results in the C/5 3. and reported on in the C/3. The texts in the C/3 should answer questions such as: Have the results/objectives been reached and, if not, what remedies could be set in? How has the budget including extra budgetary resources been spent in order to reach the results? What lessons can be learnt from the implementation of the programme? What are the results and suggested way forward for the cross cutting themes gender and sustainable development? Finally, the General Conference, through the C/2 document, should be organized so that the debates (in plenary and commissions) deal with the most important issues and guide the organisation into the next biennium. That includes inter alia that the draft agenda is sent out to national commissions for comments well in advance. It is through the specific functions of the Organization and cast against the background of its constitutional areas of competence that UNESCO's role in any given situation can be identified. Therefore it is key to continue to improve the Organization’s working methods with the aim of clear, measurable programme objectives that are possible to evaluate, have clear timetables and the commitment for appropriate programme evaluation. Svenska Unescorådet Swedish National Commission for UNESCO Utbildningsdepartementet Ministry of Education and Research 103 33 Stockholm SE-103 33 Stockholm Tfn 08-405 10 00 Fax: 08-411 04 70 Phone: +46-8-405 10 00 Fax: +46-8-411 04 70 E-post: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Webbplats: www.unesco.se Website: www.unesco.se